


Hoon Trouble

by Najanaja



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-20 13:06:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4788314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Najanaja/pseuds/Najanaja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grayson, a young stockman, is "recruited" to work for the Nightrider.  His only job is to make a new mate, but he's much, much better at making enemies.</p><p>There is sexual assault of a minor, (blink and you'd miss it), and actually don't read it that way if you don't want to?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hoon Trouble

The passenger doesn't want to touch the man who shot Dane, but he must, or he'll fall off the motorcycle and rip apart on the road. The man smells horrible. His leather jacket is old and crackled, and it feels like callouses or scabs when the passenger's chin brushes it. He has to hold the man's waist with his hands, and even his thighs have to cup the man's thighs. He is a short boy, and measuring himself against the man's body, he knows he is helpless.

The passenger was dizzy when he got on the bike, and wherever he looked, he saw a wash of dark, speckling panic. Now he surrenders to it. He doesn't want a sense of time and motion. He doesn't want a sense of self. He wants the moment when he doesn't care and can't know that he's falling. 

Grayson should do it: stand on the foot pegs and fall. His captor rides at the head of a pack, so if he jumps, his body might wreck one or two bikies. Also he could kill this man: drag at his arm to lay the bike down, or stomp on his boot and lock the rear brake. He knows this, but he can't choose to shatter his bones. They wouldn't mercy kill him, he knows. They'd toy with him and watch. He'd have a slow, dry, infernal death on the hot tarmac.

When the motorcycle stops, it ends the wind, and the storm of colors, opening the senses as though a hood is pulled off the boy. Surrounding him, the motorcycles gleam and growl and fume. The bikies are groaning and sighing as they dismount. The rider tells the passenger to get off, and pushes him down beside the dirty fairing. 

He starts to lean into the bike, and hot metal bites him on the back of his scalp, crisping some of his soft curls. He yelps, and a dark-haired man lopes toward him, and claps his hands in the boy's face. He pushes back in terror and, again, he burns the back of his head. The man laughs through a blue, plastic mask. He yanks the boy's hair, throwing him face-down in the dirt before letting go. 

The boy spends the next thirty minutes wondering how his heart can make so much pain. He can hear the beat hammering at his aorta. He thinks it will split soon. However, the pumping slows, the pain melts into soreness. There is barely a resurgence when hands grab his shoulders and sit him up. 

Then he's pulled to the campfire. It's a gentle sprawl of flames that welcomes him. He sits staring into the fire, trying not to look at faces. The men give him water and biscuits, and tough hanks of meat. Above the fire looms the bearded face of the man who carried him on his motorcycle. The boy can't look at him. The man shot Dane, a gentle old bloke.

He looks down at his brown hands, covered in pale dust and red scrapes, looking ashy and feral. His lips crack as he chews the food. A long-haired, blond bikie forces more biscuits on him, pushing them into his mouth, and more water. He doesn't want it, but he won't say no. 

The bikie pets the boy's hair, tugging and sifting the soft, dark billows. Grayson waits for the slurs, and the man calls him fit, and sexy, and asks if his cock is brown like his face, or pink like his palms. This is worse than the meanest word. The boy stares up in horror and confusion. 

The bikie pushes a biscuit into Grayson's lips, and he can't swallow, but he has to take it in. His mouth is so full that he can't lock his jaws. He gasps and chokes. The blond man steps back, laughing, as the boy coughs out a slop of paste: soft, white, and sticky. It spatters on his thighs. Crying now, his hands shaking, Grayson hears a loud cackle and looks over the fire. 

The dark-haired bikie is laying there, bare-legged, with his shins bandaged. A tall man is cradling him, stroking his wild hair. The injured man glares at Grayson, while his fingers clench and rip at a loose end of gauze.

Grayson begins sobbing harder. He abhors his memory of the day, abhors all he's done and much of what he hasn't. He mourns, too, because it could have been a good day. Luck gave him many of those. The boy never understood that, and he began this day with a sense of control. His day, his life.

Grayson would spend it working on the range, his home. He accepts his place, though he sometimes imagines himself in a yellow, blue, and red Falcon. He watches them on the Transcon with awe: machines with hunger and ferocity, predators of predators. In dreams, when he pilots them, he dies. He is only a station-born boy. He fears the road and the roaring metal. He knows the bush and he knows stock.

There's no cattle left on the rangeland, and the grazier and his family have long gone to the city. It was hoon trouble that drove them off the station: city boys, cutting fences and shooting the stock with AR-15s. The stockmen, who had none of the skills or funds for the city, had stayed. 

Grayson, the son of two station hands, is the inheritor of parched grasslands and feral goats. That's a life that makes a battler of you, but his parents and their partners are hopeful. In barter towns, goat flesh brings some money, and choice goods. Cultured meat was supposed to replace beef and mutton, but that hasn't turned out well. There are fatal contaminants: the poxes and kems, and it's rumored this is terrorism, like the EMPs that flare along the coasts. 

There's violence and lawlessness in the bush, too. The stock men never stop moving; the longest set-camp that Grayson remembers was ten days. They don't so much muster the goats as they roam with them. Still, they try to organize the grazing. Rainfall is rare, falling hot as spit out of blue-white skies. Dry soil doesn't stem into grass. When the goats have torn down the mulga, they have to be shifted, so paddocks must be made. 

That was the task, the normal workday, presented to Grayson this morning. At dawn, he was having tea and damper with his mother and father. Then, with the sun still mild, and dew buried in the brush, he was setting out. He and Dane were in the ute, running fence-lines in a thousand hectare paddock. The dull landscape, kilometers of red soil and drab brush, rocked and blurred as they drove. 

Dane was driving the fence line, while Grayson used the binoculars to check for cut wires. When he found them, he thumped the rusty side of the ute, and they pulled toward the posts. They should wait and watch; they knew this. However, the air was shimmery hot, and Grayson spilled some of the water. They wanted so badly to finish before the radiator began to hiss.

The ute was a biofuel conversion, so it ran like a sticky, soot-choked furnace, coughing on the esters. When Dane can find petrol, he'll barter for that, and lately there has been more of it on the black market. This, too, is rumored to be terrorism: hoon trouble on the Transcon. Still, it's doing some good for the stockmen. Grayson and Dane were running twenty percent petrol. The boy was confident they'd make it back to camp.

As the ute braked, Grayson slithered through the rear window into the bed. He bent over a tangle of barb wire, and shook loose a couple of scrap loops. Slapping his back pocket, he made sure he hadn't left the cutters and pliers in the cab. Simple as that. He clambered over the side, and paused to shift some new air under his wet shirt. As he walked away, chafing in his damp jeans, sweating in his leather gloves, gunfire began cracking. 

At once the ute's motor chugged faster, and the tailpipe blasted a drift of dark smoke. It rose in the air, a black signal, which Grayson stared at in horror. Dane had opened the passenger door. His eyes trembled under arched, gray brows. The boy lunged for the cab, and Dane yanked him in. 

“We're going back to that last ravine,” Dane shouted, as the ute wallowed over tussocky ground. “You're getting out.”

“You, too!” Grayson screamed. He couldn't be alone.

Dane hammered the gas pedal and Grayson bounced hard on the bench. His leg stung, and he looked down to see the barb wire snagged in his thigh. The gunfire had stopped. Now they heard the thrum-and-snarl of motors. Grayson looked behind the ute. There was nothing. Then he saw shapes as narrow as dogs, bounding and switch-backing. Bikies, he thought in horror. Armalites, killers. 

The bikies were weaving to follow hard-pan, while the ute could grind over rocks and plow into the brush. However, the motorcycles were coming faster than the truck could run. Dane and Grayson made the ravine's edge, and they shudder-stopped in a plume of dust. Dark shapes glided behind the cloud. 

Grayson heard a bang on the hood of the ute as he pushed his door open. He looked and saw bare feet on the dented metal. There was a dark, hunched, and hopping shape like a giant raven. It had a long beak, that swung up as he watched.

“Gray-” Dane said, and his silver beard split into red shrapnel. Loud cracking sounds, and Dane's neck gouted blood on the dash. A spatter of heat touched Grayson as the boy slid out the passenger side. He reached back for the old man, but dropped his hand as he saw. 

Grayson ran and fell into the ravine, but one of the wire loops caught on a rock. It unwound in four jerks, slowing the boy's slide, before it ripped out of his hand. He tumbled the last few meters, swayed up, and ran. His eyes ached in sharp pulses, color flashing from a place behind them.

He heard a shriek and saw an ape in a pale shroud, with dark legs, and a blue muzzle. It was leaping down the rocks behind him. One of the beast's legs caught in the barb wire. It fell forward and hung, keening furiously.

“Not fair!” It howled. It was a short and broad-shouldered man, wearing a blue face-guard. The bikie's dark, feverish eyes stared at Grayson. 

“Not fair!” The Armalite emphasized. Then he bent himself double. With a bare hand, he wrenched at the barb wire, and rivulets of blood trickled onto his wrist.

“Muddy, stop!” A second Armalite was struggling down, twitching himself along like a thin-legged spider.

“I got this! Oooh, yes!” shrieked the small man, and fell suddenly. Rolling on his shoulder, he bounced into a four-points crouch. His head came up, his dark hair shaking, and his eyes narrowed. He gave a shrill growl. “You mongrel.”

Grayson ran, fiery and light in his terror. Hearing motors roar above him, Grayson saw dirt sliding down the gulch wall. Dust and roost from the tyres spun into the air like greater wheels. The motorcycles were separating, some outpacing him, and some tracking him. 

Grayson crossed to the other side of the ravine and began climbing. He was barely able to grip with the rawhide gloves, and the second loop of wire was hooked into the leather. As he slapped at the hard dirt, sometimes the barbs snagged usefully, and sometimes they pulled him back. Grayson stopped, meaning to slip off the gloves, and a hand grabbed his foot. 

The Armalite pulled at the boy, throwing him onto his belly. Grayson slid down, passing the bikie, and slapped out both hands to catch himself. The Armalite howled as barb wire dug into his shin. Now they were sliding together. The man kicked brutally at Grayson, who finally disentangled. 

When they hit the ground, the boy scuttled back, as the Armalite stood. The bikie stepped forward and tripped. His jaw hit the gravel and his eyes widened, a wounded look. Then he glared, and a gout of pink saliva dribbled from the blue shield, as he rasped, “Oi! Boy! Gonna get you.”

There were two wires snaring the Armalite now, but Grayson believed him. He leaped up. He raced, wet-eyed, into ripples of rock and brush. He crashed branches, grazing boulders, and knocked into a man. 

The boy shoved at the man and spun. An arm slapped his chest, sliding up to hook his neck. Black leather and muscle squeezed into Grayson's soft throat. A forceful hand shot down his torso, onto his pants, cupping and then pressing. Grayson gasped. There was a sudden numbness in his belly. He couldn't tell if he was tensed or loose, and he thought he might be pissing himself.

“Please!” he said.

“That's what I like to hear.” The whisper was thick. The hand shifted roughly, and then the touch lightened. Hard fingers slid under Grayson's shirt.

“Please!” Grayson begged, twisting, staring at the thick wrist. The zippered cuff scraped the soft hair below his navel. The fingers paused below his sternum, and rubbed in a circle. Now he was sure he would wet himself. He shut his eyes. He pulled at the forearm trapping his neck, then let go as it brutally flexed. Now he couldn't make a sound, only scuff his boots and grasp, hoping for something to hold. He needed an anchoring handful, or solid footing, but he was pawing at gravel and twigs. 

Then someone pulled hard on Grayson's hand. Tightening his muscles, the boy wrenched himself toward his helper, thinking, 'Dane.' He pictured the man's dark face, his eyes assuring and comforting. Grayson bucked out of the bikie's hands. He opened his eyes and saw a blue mask, and a furious, dark glare. 

The injured Armalite, growling and then giggling, shook Grayson off balance. He fell on the rocky soil with a cracking pain in his hip, and a burn in his palms. The boy sobbed, “No!,” guarding his face with his hands. The second bikie grabbed his wrists, and shouted, “Wait your turn, I caught him!”

“Rughhh, no! No, he's mine!” The shorter bikie swept a handful of bloody wire up. The boy screamed and cringed. With both hands held, he couldn't protect his face. He watched the spikes shake and then swoop over him. His captor yelled and leaped back. 

“Fuck! Muddy, it's me, it's me! You can have him, look, it's Bandy, look at me, calm down!” 

“Bandy!” Blue-mask tilted his head. “Bandy! He cut me, this mongrel. Going to whip his face off.”

“He cut you? You cut me!” 

“His fault!” The Armalite hunched down and shook the wire like a tambourine, rattling the barbs. “He's playing with wire. Let's teach him. Hold him, hold him.”

“Yah, Muddy...” The big, blond man was brushing at a blood-welling gouge on his hand. “Where's Cundalini? He should be here!”

“Where's Cundalini?” Muddy shoved Grayson onto his back. The Armalite swiveled. “Where's Cundalini? Where'd he go?”

“We should find him, hey.” Holding his palms out, the blond Armalite stepped over Grayson. “And talk about this-”

A motorcycle revved in the ravine, ripping a red roost among the rocks and brush, sliding and lunging past boulders and mulga. “Zano!”

The blond lifted his fists, pumped them, and whooped. The bike swept its back tyre over the ground like a snake's belly as it arrived. Under the grooved rubber, the earth convulsed and coughed. Grit tumbled over Grayson's face, and weighted his flossy hair. He lay flat on his belly, staring at the bare foot that swung down as the rider stood.

The blue-masked armalite leaped over the boy, to the rider's side. Pulling his mask down, he kissed the visor of the man's black helmet. “Zano! How'd you get down here?”

“Found a good cut.” The high growl of the voice was euphoric and proud. The rider tore his snap and d-ring loose, and heaved off his helmet. Black curls scalloped onto his brow, which gleamed with oil and sweat. “A natural switchback, and what wasn't there, I made!”

Zano's face was darkly tanned, and his grin was white-hot in a coal-bed of black beard. He looked over his shoulder as he leaned his tall bike onto the stand. “Saborne was following. Doesn't look like he made it. Good thing we got that ute.”

He swung off the motorcycle and trotted forward. The stringy hems of his jeans swung above his bare ankles. He stopped by the boy's head. A dirty foot lifted and nudged at Grayson's face. 'Death' was tattooed on the long toes. Tucking his chin, Grayson rolled his face into the rough soil.

“What's this?” The rider asked, weighting his foot on the boy's head, and rocking it gently. Grayson hissed as the stony ground scraped him. The foot slid off and knocked into his shoulder. “Stand, boy.”

“Little civvie,” the blond said, as Grayson pushed himself up. “My catch.” 

“Yours?” Muddy swung his palms up high. “Nooo, Zano, look- my blood's on him!”

“Yeah?” The man rubbed his nails into his wet curls, scrabbling at a dodgy itch. “Oh, yeah? Whose blood is on Diabando?”

The rider sauntered to the blond bikie, clasped his hand, and showed it to the short Armalite. “Is that his? Did you cut him, Muddy?”

The smallest man tugged at his mask, shifting it on his neck. “Maybe? I don't know; I don't. I think so. Yes. I did.”

“Drop that wire.” Zano spat. 

“He can have the boy.” The wire fell and bounced, spitting dark spots onto the soil. The Armalite brought his clasped hands to his heart. “For an unbirthday present, and I'll give you three hundred and sixty...two...more, Bandy.”

“He's not yours to give.” The bearded rider growled. “You're a probie; you don't take salvage. Bandy gets what I say he gets- not what you want to give. When you men fight, I'm wronged the most. Neither of you gets the boy.”

“You're killing him?” Muddy grinned. 

The man laughed, and crushed a handful of Grayson's hair in his fist. “Let's ask him.”

“don't kill me” Grayson whispered.

“Belt up boy, and hear me. Hear me carefully. You want a job? Work for me, and I'll protect you. Do well-”

“Yes!” Grayson cried, and the man slapped him. 

“Try this one more time. Do well for me, and when your work's done, when I'm done with you, I'll pay you out in goods or scrip, and give you one ride. Any place in the zone. Even out of it.”

Grayson blinked. “Oh, God, I can go home?”

Zano cackled, and his comrades snickered. “Boy, home is just what happened last, and for long enough that you got used to it. What's your name?”

“Grayson.”

“You answer to that, and to salvage, too. Someone says sallie, and that's you. Got it?”

“Yes.”

“Someone asks who you are, tell them you're Zano's salvage. Zano's salvage. Someone asks your name, and that's Grayson.”

“I've got it.”

“Smart boy. He'll like that.”

While Zano talked, a fourth Armalite came out of the brush. Muddy ran to him, hiking his dark pants to show bloody calves. The man knelt, brushing his mustache over the muscular legs, and touching his lips to the cuts. 

Grayson's chest felt hot and crumpled, and he couldn't inhale as he watched. They were crazy; why did they do this? With horror, he thought of the blond man's hand, shoving over his pants and pulling at him. Why? Just why, why was this happening? Why would they do this? 

Zano was telling the men, “Go find Saborne and his bike.” 

He pushed Grayson to the blue motorcycle, and mounted, kicking down the passenger pegs. He set his boots, tensed his legs, and gracefully muscled the bike off the stand. Then Grayson clambered on, swaying on the left peg, and waving his foot to find the right. 

The bike was tall, with long forks and large, burly wheels. It was massive, and pitted, and scratched, and dirtied: beast of bush and road. Grayson had thought, at a distance, that pursuit cars were overwhelming. This machine was gutting him, trembling his legs. He shook as he lowered himself onto the black leather.

“You'll like this.” The rider said. “If you can hold on, which means holding onto me, boy, not the damn seat.”

Now, Grayson had to touch the rider: pushing his face into flaking leather, sliding his palms onto the moist muscles of the man's belly. Zano stank of motor oil, and a musk that leaked out of his jacket as he reached his hands to the grips.

The ride along the gully was brutal: jolting, sliding, and swaying, all in a bitter furl of dirt. Soon the motorcycle was climbing. The roost of the ripping tyre beat on Grayson's back. He was slipping down, and humping his hips forward, and digging his fingers into hard muscle. Still his hips slid back, and his arms pulled taut. As the bike surged out of the gully, he screamed, and Zano whooped back. 

The motorcycle raced along the ravine and stopped at the ute. There, Zano had to pound Grayson's left thigh to stir him. Then he had to pull the boy, past the dented hood, and the crazed glass, red as the sacred heart. The boy's mother had postcards of church windows. She set them out on Sundays and they contemplated them. Dying. Living again. A haven, with no men like Zano. Fire for men like him.

“Get him out.” The man said to the boy, “And get in. Drive.”

Dane's body struggled, Grayson thought. It didn't want to leave this shelter and lay on the dirt for the goannas. It didn't want its splintered mouth to suck in flies under tomorrow's hot sky. It had to be shaken and heaved out of its heavy slouch. 

Once he'd slid Dane's body onto the ground, Grayson began to turn it over, but he couldn't. This felt wrong. He started scraping up rocks to cover it, but Zano swore, and pulled him up, and shoved him into the ute's cab: Stench of blood, urine. Wet and crusted surfaces. 

The boy drove dazedly, following the blue motorcycle. They came to blood-soaked patches of dirt, with a scatter of dead and wounded goats. Skinning and butchering them, Grayson was enveloped in the labor. He ripped and rolled the skins back, and jointed the carcasses, and sweated and panted. His eyes stung, and he saw his father working with him. Not Zano, not him; it was his father, and today was all the days they'd shared. 

Hours later, he looked at his blood-smeared hands, and at Zano in his red-coated skin. The violence was thin and smooth now, dry and still, a memory and traces. It was natural to bear it, because he was not himself. He was salvage. He looked around with docility.

The Armalites were helping Saborne into the ute's cab, and heaving a battered motorcycle into the bed. Grayson looked at the vehicle, stained and burdened, but the same old ute. It was coming with him. They both belonged home, and maybe they could turn someday, and retrace the tracks. 

That night, when he's sobbing at the campfire, he knows that won't happen. The ute can break and be rebuilt, and he can't. There's no restoring him if the Armalites want to hurt him. The blond bikie is returning to Grayson now. He smiles with bigger, whiter teeth than a man should have. 

“Let him be.” Zano says, and Bandy shows his palms, circling the fire to join his mates. 

“I want to fill him up, that's all.” He sits beside the man with the mustache, and behind the dark-haired man, whose hip he pets fondly. The trio laugh, staring at Grayson.

“You don't put another thing in his mouth without asking.” Zano growls, swinging a beer can above his bearded face, shaking the last splash onto his tongue. 

“Oh, what if he's hungry? Boys that age, they can get sooo hungry.” The voice of the small, dark-haired man is sly and hard. 

“Anything he wants or needs is my concern. He's my sallie. And you don't want to talk about boys his age, Muddy. If you're smart, you're gonna stop thinking about boys his age. For a good, long time.”

As though the fire's flicker has thrown pain onto his face, Muddy betrays a desolate mood. He flips onto his belly and burrows in his mate's lap. 

Grayson is developing a dog's trust in Zano. He abhors it. He'll dig it out of himself, with dull, hot knives of shame and anger. The beers help. He has never had so many before, and his mind is glassy and sloshing. He thinks he's warm and time is jumping. The Armalites have curled in blankets, and Zano has tossed him one. 

Grayson decides to find shelter before they wake and taunt him. Confused as a wet, new kid, he drags the blanket behind him like a cord and placenta. He heads for the ute. It looks so safe and big. Of course he won't enter the cab, with the moaning and dull-eyed Saborne, but there's space below. He finds a hollow just behind the front axle. 

As he settles, a dark beast comes growling along the ute. It snarls words at him.

“Goddamn it, you drongo, get out of there.”

Grayson mutters. “no. no. no.” 

Zano gives a high groan, and throws his arm under the truck. He grips the boy's belt and slides him out. “You know what happens if you pass out there? Sometime in the night, the ute rolls. Like you left it in neutral. It rolls right onto you, boy. Sallies have bad luck when Muddy is mad at them. And he's so fucking mad now. You stay close to me. Come on, back to the fire.”

The campfire is banked in ashes. Zano pushes Grayson onto his ground tarp, and rolls down behind him, groaning and rocking into place. He tosses both blankets over them, and presses his chest to the boy's back. This is the fit of Grayson's father, and the touch and warmth of him. It is not Zano; here is Grayson's father, holding him. It is not Zano.

“You're his size,” The man says softly, wrapping his arm over Grayson. “How old are you? Thirteen? Fourteen?”

“Sixteen.” Grayson is a sketch on a steamy window. Filling in with mist, fast and thick, he watches the edge of himself pulling in. 

“Shit!” A husky laugh. “You're this soft at sixteen? What the fuck...have I done? He's thirteen and twice as hard as you. A tough boy. Just so reckless. And he wants so much to... He wants to be... He doesn't understand. Doesn't even know what he's chasing. Doesn't know. It's bad for him. Being only with the men. Oh, he's lonely. He needs a mate his own age. Well, your age- sure, your age. Right?” 

Zano is shaking the boy's shoulder. Zano's words slip into his hair, and dampen it, and they wander round his head, buzzing into the bone. “Right? You want a mate, want to make a new mate?”

“Uh, hummm. yehhh.” Grayson says, stuck on the syllables. They're so thick. 

“And watch him...watch out for him. No trouble. Stop trouble. Do well...do well, a year, maybe, do well.... I'll take you home.” 

Home- he will go home to his father, and mother, and Dane. No Zano. No men that lope and snatch and howl. It's all done, maybe never happened. He's not sure what Zano wants, but something about some boy and no trouble. 

The stockmen say Grayson is a good boy, and no trouble. It's how he is, who he is. So he knows, as he shuts his eyes: he's going home.

**Author's Note:**

> I am a damn fool. I'm writing for a small fandom of an all-but-forgotten movie, eclipsed by its sucessors. And then I compound things by focusing a story on an OC. So, a percent of a percent is what I'm catering to here...
> 
> I want to expand on some of the things in Mates. Salvage, for example. It is not canon, just my answer to some of the questions I have about how Armalite 'society' would evolve in the forbidden zones. My thought is that Armalites would need support. They have a network in safe zones. But if someone needs nursing, or a well must be drilled, or mechanicals maintained, or construction done, or spike strips fabricated, or ammo reloaded, or IEDs buried, or trenches dug, or bikes modded...
> 
> The packs, ideally, keep moving to dodge the bronze and the military. The station house is not where the Acolytes live. It's where they rally, and recuperate, and most of all, it is where they house the support staff. Salvage is a traditional term. 
> 
> The sallies originated before the Armalites were properly gangs. In the earliest form, salvage were the few survivors not sport-killed in hijackings. They were a select group offered a chance to earn a ride back to the cities. Let's call what they did "temp work." Their other option was to walk the Transcon home...hundreds of kilometers with no water. The choice was technically not between debasement and death...but in effect, it was.
> 
> Later, when the MFP began pushing the Armalites farther from civilization, salvage evolved. Now, survivors with the right skills were offered more than a ride. They were given protection and eventual release and wealth. This was necessary, because you can't have an enslaved mechanic or nurse who hates you. They have to be treated well, and they have to go back to the cities with a message: the Armalites take care of their own. By the time of Mates, salvage were often people who sought the 'position' through middlemen. They'd be out of the cities, they'd be fed and housed, and they'd be safe from the common violence. Also, serving as salvage could be a precurser to probie status in the gangs. 
> 
> Hoon Trouble occurs about two years before any of the events of Mates. Zano's pretty old-school, though, and Grayson's recruitment is a nod to the good old days. He has no choice. Mudguts really would flay his face with the barb wire, if Grayson didn't accept Zano's protection.
> 
> Mudguts fascinates me. He is the most affectionate, playful, loving, charming, alarming, callous, ferocious, and crazed Armalite. In one scene, he dances and frolics with Cundalini. Later, Cundalini is standing at the window of the Chevy, when he's brutally body-slammed to the ground by...Mudguts. 
> 
> It's similar when we see Mudguts chase the wagon. He pauses and looks at his lover, whose hand has been torn off, but then...Diabando starts to pull ahead of him, and Mudguts rejoins the chase. He MUST be there first, wherever the action is. He cannot stop. 
> 
> Still later, he carries/pulls Cundalini into the barn by himself, though he's one of the smallest Armalites. He seems devoted, and furious at May for ruining Cundalini's revenge. 
> 
> Finally, Mudguts affectionately rubs Johnny's hair during the tanker robbery. It's very sweet, how he pets his mate...but when Max attacks, Mudguts signals to the pack to leave Johnny. Just abandon him, though he could be hurt. There is someone to chase. 
> 
> I don't think Mudguts is aware of what he's doing when he's excited. Mudguts goes into literal frenzies. He is the most dangerous...to the other Armalites. And so here, a young Mudguts lashes out at an obstacle, and it's his mate, Diabando. And when Zano confronts him, he is honestly confused. 
> 
> Also, he's terrible at math. Everyone knows there are 364 unbirthdays in a year. After the gift of Grayson, he has 363 more gifts to give, not 362. Maybe he thinks 363 is an unrealistic goal, and wants to keep the number manageable! Maybe he's acting the fool. When people are upset with you, make them laugh.
> 
> The Nightrider is riding a Honda 750 four, possibly changed the forks to allow for larger, enduro wheels. Yes, a heavy bike, and high center of gravity, and he rode it down into a ravine, and back out...can't be done? 
> 
> Well, you can't follow ten feet behind a man who runs right into a road train, and somehow avoid the collision yourself, by turning off into a side road at 100+ kph, and maintain control and calm. Unless you're Mad Max. So if Miller can have his top pursuit man, I'll have my Nightrider, just as BAMF on a bike. And the Acolytes, all nearly as keen.
> 
> And since MM1 in movie canon is set sometime after 1984, I could put him on loads of interesting bikes. If you have suggestions for something you'd like to see Zano rip the guts out of, holler.


End file.
